


Haunting Me Haunting You

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, because grimmjow watched him come outta his mom's hooha, for at least the first three chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-01-12 08:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18442541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: Quincies are born behind barriers for a hundred reasons (the biggest being not "What if their fresh and tasty soul attracts a hollow" but "What if their soulmate is not the right sort". Meaning anything but another Quincy.) But Masaki's soulmate is the wrong sort (oh, so much of that), so she greets Ichigo's arrival in their own little clinic, protected by no barriers but the basic ones she put on their house, against prowling hollows.Isshin cleans mucus out of little Ichigo's mouth, hands trembling, and looks up at her with eyes overbright with tears.Masaki stares back, dumb with exhaustion.Over her husband's shoulder there's a white-masked maw.----29. the one where your soulmate’s ghost haunts you when they die.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/gifts).



> Other soulmate AU ficlets can be found [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17930849) This one is a work in progress I have been stalling hardcore on because I buried myself under canon divergence stories and am running out of juice for another different-enough variation, but I like what I've got already, so I'm posting it.

Quincies are born behind barriers for a hundred reasons (the biggest being not "What if their fresh and tasty soul attracts a hollow" but "What if their soulmate is not the right sort". Meaning anything but another Quincy.) But Masaki's soulmate _is_ the wrong sort (oh, so much of that), so she greets Ichigo's arrival in their own little clinic, protected by no barriers but the basic ones she put on their house, against prowling hollows.

Isshin cleans mucus out of little Ichigo's mouth, hands trembling, and looks up at her with eyes overbright with tears.

Masaki stares back, dumb with exhaustion.

Over her husband's shoulder there's a white-masked maw.

The barrier shreds from the inside like a paper bag filled by a high-pressure hose. She jerks forward -- it hurts, everything hurts -- raises her gleaming hand --

"Where the _fuck_ am I?"

Isshin can't hear or feel the reiatsu behind him but he was a captain once. He throws himself to the side, wrapped around the child, to let Masaki aim.

A paw slaps her hand aside, a long feline body lands on her birthing bed, _over_ her, jowls curled up -- she has her left hand too, she did the same to White, she can--

Ichigo gives his first cry.

The cat hollow flinches.

A paw on each of her shoulders, it stares at the newborn in Isshin's arms as Masaki's husband slowly moves backwards toward the door. She can see Isshin's dark eyes flitting to the paw prints on the bed and on her arms and she knows he can guess where it is well enough.

"... Hey, Quincy."

"Yes?" Masaki replies, something that would sound bright if her teeth weren't clenched. 

"You. Didn't summon me here somehow. Did you."

... Oh. 

Masaki's stomach drops. Oh, no. Her child. Her Ichigo. 

"... I did not."

She's going to have to destroy her child's soulmate. God. She's going to have to take the soul that should have fit her son like hand and glove and annihilate it, condemn him to never meeting the one that would match him. It's that or he'll devour him -- soulmates are always the first to die when a hollow turns, if they knew each other in life; and if they didn't and only meet once a ghost then they always die second. She can't... She can't allow that.

"Isshin, _run!_ " she yells, and summons a hail of white streaks.

The wrongness of a garganta tears open before she's done with the first syllable.

The whole clinic has to be rebuilt afterwards. Kisuke-san hosts them for the next six months, on alert for the merest whisper of white mask and claw; the hollow never comes back. 

"Are you _sure_ you missed?" Kisuke-san will ask her later on, and she... eventually, she will start to wonder.

But she can't quite tell herself she imagined the flash of wide-eyed horror in hollow eyes.

\--

Ichigo sees weird people that other people don't, sometimes. Mommy says it's fine, and if they look sad she'll send someone to help them later on, and not to worry. 

Daddy always pretends he sees them too, even when Ichigo wasn't looking at anything for real and there's nothing to see. Daddy is silly sometimes.

Ichigo's neighbors aren't silly. They're just mean. 

"Just ask your fake friends to send it back!" Tsume yells, flailing his hand right through the poor old lady as he points at the high wall behind which Ichigo's ball disappeared.

"I'm sorry, my boy, I can't touch things," she apologizes. There's a long bright chain dangling from her chest. The rest of the children hoot. 

"Creepy! Creepy!"

Tsume goes to shove him. 

The ball beans him in the back of the head so hard he pitches into the ground; he's howling when he pushes himself back up, face all red and bloody. Everyone screams. The ball rolls away.

There's a huge cat on top of the wall, staring down at him. Ichigo stares back, mouth open. _Huge_.

It drops to the ground and the old lady screams, runs away right through the wall. The other children run too for no reason at all. Ichigo is too shocked to go anywhere, to even think about moving.

"... Hi?"

The cat curls up its jowls. It's taller at the shoulder than Ichigo is.

"Next time fucking hit them yourself. So weak."

Ichigo's lip wobbles. The cat talks, but says mean things. "I don't wanna hit them. I wanna play with them."

"... _Weak_ ," the cat says with a sneer in his angry man's voice. 

Turning away, he starts to go through the wall too, and Ichigo -- doesn't think.

(thinks about the scared yell from the old lady and thinks about how strange, how special the cat is, thinks about --) (doesn't think, _feels_.)

Ichigo catches the tail as it whips past. He yelps -- it's not soft and furry at all and his palm smarts. The cat freezes, then looks over his shoulder all slow and narrow-eyed.

"Uh. Um. Thanks? For my ball. Thank you. ... Do you want to play?"

There's a long moment of silence as the cat watches him, still mostly turned away, tail still in Ichigo's hand. 

"You know what?" 

He cat-smiles. It's not a nice smile.

"Let's _play_."

When Ichigo gets home that evening he's so exhausted he almost falls asleep three times on the clinic bed Daddy sat him on to clean his skinned palms and knees. 

"So did your little friends play nice today?"

Ichigo yawns. "No... The cat scared them off." His eyes tear up when Daddy tugs a little pebble out of his palm, but he doesn't yelp. The cat said "better" when Ichigo didn't yelp the last time he fell. It was... Kind of nice. 

He didn't say anything when on his third try Ichigo managed to jump high enough to catch the little wooden house's roof and climb onto it and yell 'safe!', but he circled around it like a shark around an island and didn't jump up on it, even when Ichigo taunted him a bit. 

Then when Ichigo slid down the side and climbed onto his back he kept going a little way before he slipped out from under Ichigo. It was _great_. Even though Ichigo hit his chin.

"Oh, the cat!" Daddy grins. 

Daddy stops grinning. Then he starts grinning again, but it's not really the same way.

"Was he big and white?"

Ichigo's head jerks up. Daddy _never_ sees things right. "Do you know him?!" Daddy knows the cat! The special cat that nobody can see! He _knows_ him! "He was so big, Daddy! And he threw the ball into Tsume's face! And he chased me _all_ around the playground! And--"

"Haha. _Ha_. Did he? That sounds! _Fun_."

"Maybe he'll be here tomorrow!"

"... Yes, but tomorrow Daddy absolutely super-needs you at the clinic. For, uh. Medical things of great importance. Yes."

Ichigo gives his daddy a long doubtful look. "Mommy said I can't be in the clinic."

Daddy grins but with his mouth closed. "...Mommy will say yes for this one. C'mon, let's tell her all about it."

\-- 

They enroll Ichigo in karate classes and Masaki didn't want to have to do it so early, but she starts trying to remember exercises they put her through when she was a child. Not the hard, thankless ones -- not yet -- but. 

There's Karin and Yuzu to raise, too. At least neither one of them attracted any kind of ghost at birth.

"Could still be a shinigami!" Isshin said when she pointed that out, and she playfully shoved him right off their marital bed. They're shielding the house better now -- Quincy-paranoid level wards; she wasn't too proud to beg Ryuu-chan -- and if either of her daughters is promised to a shinigami they'll have to notice them while they're out of the house somehow. _And_ the shinigami are out into the Living World, anyway. They're more likely to meet once her daughters have lived _entire, full lives_ and passed on _naturally_.

Ichigo doesn't progress fast, distracted with a hundred other things. Her heart hurts every time she thinks about pushing him the way she was pushed.

When the hollow lures him in with that fake little girl Ichigo is still nowhere near good enough to notice.

She races after her son and she readies her bow, nervous because _it's her son_ but she can do it easy and it -- burns inside her, it _tears_ \-- something tears itself out and _the hollow wasn't that strong_ , _what is going on_ \--

Her power. Her power is going, is _gone_ , her power -- her blut vene dies and it's flesh pain next, tearing and bright, meaty and immediate. 

She's holding her son. She is. She tries to roll on top of him to make herself a shield and Ichigo -- Ichigo screams, Ichigo fights, Ichigo.

It's so cold. The hollow leans down to devour them.

Then it's not cold any longer; it's not anything. The riverbank is dark with rain and clouds and her child is screaming under a woman's torn-up corpse. The broken end of her chain swings against her pelvis. She wraps her hand around it tight. 

The big hollow with the lure is curiously still before them. If she can gather enough reishi back -- there must be some way, even freshly dead (how?!) --

Then it fans out like a gory flower, blooming guts and sinews.

In the middle there's the hollow cat. Ichigo's dead-and-lost soulmate. It looks at her. It's painted red, dripping. 

The big hollow is still screeching. "Oh, shut it," the cat rasps out, and slashes down its claws, slicing the mask in four.

A burst of reishi fans out as it goes up in almost-flames; she grabs as much as she can with her death-stunned abilities, desperate for power, but she's so weak. The blood crumbles to dust, too, disappears, and the cat hollow is bone again.

It pads to her corpse and her son. Ichigo is still screaming.

"Will you shut it, you brat. She's right the fuck here, what are you cuddling up to her meat for?"

Ichigo blinks teary, uncomprehending eyes at him. The cat hollow swipes its paw at her corpse, topples it off her son, and Masaki...

Masaki drops to her knees and holds her child to her, tight, hiding his face in her shoulder so he won't have to see the shredded ruin of her back, the vacant doll look of her face.

"I'm here. I'm here, Ichigo, I'm here. I'm sorry. Oh, baby, I'm so sorry."

The cat hollow doesn't attack.

She doesn't know how that's possible. It's happening; that's good enough. She doesn't care. It's good enough.

When they get back home Isshin stares right past her and at her son, muddy and splashed red.

"Ichigo! Are you -- are you injured? Where's Mom? Are you okay?"

She watches her husband's face bleach sickly white when their son points at an empty space and says, "but she's right here, though."

\--

Karin squints for five seconds, and then toddles after her the same way. 

Yuzu doesn't. Masaki could _scream_. She touches her daughter's shoulder, and pretends Yuzu can still feel it. 

"Mommy loves you, baby."

Half of her family can still tell the other half for her. It's better than nothing. It is. It's _better_ , it's. It's good.

The cat hollow doesn't leave for another week, staying through her own wake and the first harried days of Kisuke-san's questioning, his tests. (Quincies don't hollowify, but arguably after carrying White around in her soul for a while what may happen to her could be worse.) The only thing he says is "You'll get him fucking munched, chumming the waters around him." 

She says "thank you" and "what's your name?"; he acknowledges neither one.

He sleeps on the roof of the house over Ichigo's room and lets him hold his tail until one morning he's just gone.

"I'm sorry, baby," she tells Ichigo. Ichigo shrugs, head bowed, eyes still reddened.

"It's okay. He said he was getting hungry. Mom... What is he, really?"

\--

Most people only know their soulmate for sure when one or both die. Because the ghost waits for them and then they go up together, and then they live together in Soul Society. In a sense, Ichigo's lucky; he knows his own soulmate already.

But his cat doesn't come back. His cat is a hollow -- a fallen soul, lost to despair or hate and turned into a ghost-eating monster, like the one that -- like -- 

That one _didn't_ eat Mom. Because his cat knew to find him, and he saved her.

He didn't save her. 

Ichigo tells himself he saved her enough. Kisuke-ojisan says he saved _Ichigo_ and his mother was lucky, collateral not-damage, and even so that is still something to be grateful about. Because Ichigo's soulmate is scary even amongst hollows, of a strength almost never seen in the Living World, and no one lesser would have gotten the Grand Fisher to back off. Ichigo certainly couldn't have, not even if he had been training "properly."

Kisuke-ojisan even makes the finger claws. He's so lame.

But he pushes him more than Mom does, even now that she died because of him. So Ichigo visits, sometimes.

Dad is supposed to be able to see Mom. She's his soulmate. He _should_ see her even if he never sees anything else. But he can't. Kisuke-ojisan never says sorry about that but Ichigo can see how he works extra-hard on a gigai for her, for Dad and so she can hug Yuzu again. The other day when Karin tried to pass along a hug Yuzu screamed and called her a liar. It'll have to look different, Mom's gigai, because she's dead already, they found her body on the riverbank before Dad could get it and buried her and everything. Ichigo doesn't want to pass along the joke that she'll just pretend to be Masaki's cousin Masako. It's lame and not funny.

He passes the joke along anyway. It sticks in his throat.

He's good at blut vene. That's one good thing.

He wants to show his cat -- he was training Ichigo that time in the playground, Ichigo can tell now. He wants to show his cat he's harder to bite and make bleed now and he doesn't cry anymore; if another hollow tries to bite him they'll break their teeth. He can throw a punch now, he can jump off high things without being scared. He hasn't beat Tatsuki yet, but he will. He wants to. 

His cat doesn't come back. Not when Ichigo turns ten and not when he turns eleven.

"Sometimes," Kisuke-ojisan tells him in the careless way he says the worst, most painful things, "actually fairly often, hollows feed on other hollows. Because humans are too weak and not nutritious, see? It's basically a pyramid scheme of cannibalism."

Ichigo's first bow is not bow-shaped. More like a lance. More like a _no_.

His soulmate was dead and heartless already. It's not worse to think he's now food in some other hollow's stomach. It's not.

It's not.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's the last chapter i've got complete, after that is just broken scenes and timeines that need to get reworked. no promises on if/when this will be updated again.

He's already halfway through his garganta when he realizes Shawlong and Edrad are on his tail.

Not literally. He's been tail-free for a little while now.

One of the things he likes about losing it (the _one_ thing he likes about losing it) is that he has more power to waste on gargantas. One of the things he hates is that now they're stuck with dozens of other arrancar they can't eat who keep putting their noses in everyone's business and reporting every sideways fart.

Oh, and now that his own personal assholes are smaller they can stalk him better. When they were all adjuchas he just had to slip through cracks in cliffs they didn't fit into. Since they became arrancar, though -- no dice. He had to try about seven times before he managed to shake them. 

Now it turns out he didn't.

But usually it's Yylfordt and Di Roy who stalk him like no tomorrow. "Fuck you guys want?" 

Shawlong and Edrad watch him placidly, coming to a stop a few feet away.

"It seemed important," Shawlong says eventually. Edrad shrugs. 

"Way I figure, you've got something to protect. Means your fracción should know about it." 

Grimmjow doesn't get angry at that -- not the hot anger that explodes. He just goes cold, crystallized. 

"What if," he asks casually, head tilted just a little, "I decide I gotta protect it _from you_."

Edrad stares at him -- looks oddly hurt, for a second, the big bruiser. "... Then I'll go back right now. My king."

Shawlong says nothing. Just watches him, thoughtful. Waits.

"Don't tell the loudmouths," Grimmjow says abruptly, and turns on his heels to keep going. "Ain't that I think someone _could_ torture it out of them, but I sure as fuck don't trust them not to chatter it out. Nakeem's okay, if you gotta," he adds gruffly.

He tears a way out into the thin, reishi-weak sky of the Living World. It's evening but the brat isn't home. The pull is strong; it's all Grimmjow can do to redirect to the roof of the shop and not appear inside right beside him. The trio of shinigami inside might not stab him out of hand, but he ain't gonna test it. They have several powerful children in their care, it feels like, and only one of them has a proven track record of not getting snacked on. 

Shawlong and Edrad take a few seconds to catch up; the second they land, though, a panel in the roof opens and a man in green climbs out. He pretends to be surprised to see them. Grimmjow snorts.

"Hey. Any progress with that fake corpse for the Quincy?"

The man blinks -- tilts his hat up, looks him up and down. Edrad shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, needled by the killing intent on the breeze from more unseen shinigami, but Grimmjow just sinks onto his haunches, hands hanging limply over his knees.

"--Mister Cat! Interesting new look. Very bipedal. Did you take your mask off yourself, or did you have assistance?"

Grimmjow snorts. "Asked first. He still moping?"

"... He's... not moping anymore." A heavy, theatrical sigh. "No, it's worse than that, I'm afraid. Now he's _brooding_. He was such a sweet child. Where did that go?"

Grimmjow snorts, lip quirking up. "Puberty, probably. No on the corpse, then?"

The shinigami heaves a sigh. "No on the corpse, indeed." His eyes slide shrewdly over Shawlong's tall frame, Edrad's massive shoulders. "Your... friends?"

"My fracción."

"Was it wise to bring them here?"

Grimmjow stands, then. Stares him down, eyes narrow and cold. "They ain't gonna touch him. Because if they do, I'm gonna touch them. But you put a finger on them and I'll be shooting up a rank from devouring the soul right out of the lot of you."

"Ah," Shawlong says in the silence of their staring contest. "Your soulmate."

As Edrad straightens up in shock, Grimmjow arches an eyebrow at Shawlong, resists the urge to roll his eyes. "How the fuck? You need to stop being smart, Shawlong, that'll get you in trouble one day."

"Your soulmate's _alive_ ," Edrad rasps, staring at the roof under their feet like he can see the brat through the shingles if he squints.

"... Yeah. He's still a brat. He was born when I was already adjuchas." 

"That's lucky," Shawlong muses. "Mine's right here." He taps his stomach with a long finger. The shinigami in green doesn't react outwardly, but one of the watchers' reiryoku ripples. Ahh, there, behind the chimney.

Edrad frowns, knuckling at the pit of his own stomach absently. "What do you intend for the boy?" 

Grimmjow shrugs. "Fuck if I know."

He links his hands behind his neck, stretches his elbows out. 

"And yeah, we had help with the masks. A shit-ton of us did." He narrows his eyes, watching for a reaction. "A real shinigami-shaped kinda help. Because everyone knows that's the best kind of help for a hollow there is and there are no strings attached."

There's a beat of silence, and a second; Grimmjow figures there ain't gonna be a reaction, turns away to leave. Brat's still alive, being trained; nothing more he needs to see.

"It does sound potentially... problematic. I might be able to offer some assistance."

Grimmjow turns, smiling with his canines out. "From one shinigami to the next! Yeah, I'm gonna trust you more than I trust Aizen, sight unseen."

There's a flicker in the man's eyes at the name, but he doesn't otherwise react. "You trust me with your soulmate."

"... I trust _my soulmate's parents_ to murder you in your bed if you look sideways at him. And I trust that this wasn't you trying to slip in that you could use him as leverage over me," Grimmjow adds, unctuously furious, a devouring rage crackling out of a growing smile. "Make my day. Tell me it was."

The shinigami in green watches him, expressionless. Not scared -- that pisses him off; he grins wider, crazier, cocks his claws. 

"Kurosaki Ichigo is infinitely more precious than the intel and potential sabotage a lone arrancar could offer, especially coerced. He is worth more than the battle power you would bring, as well. Quite honestly, he is worth more in my eyes than you by all possible metrics. So no," the man finishes, head tilted, "you may assume it was not."

Grimmjow snorts; relaxes a bit, though. "Was you attempting to see if you could make me run on that lie. Don't play me again. If I catch you, I'll kill you."

"I'll endeavor not to let you catch me, then." The shinigami smiles. "Have a good night, Mister Cat. Maybe don't come again."

Grimmjow stares, jaw tight. Turns. Yeah, he already got made once, and nobody but his idiots has noticed his absences yet but that isn't gonna last. "Maybe," he says, turning to leave.

Yeah.

He knew it already. He can't come back until Aizen is dead and devoured.

That's cool. Whatever. Nothing of interest yet to see. 

\--

Ichigo is twelve and thirteen and fourteen. Ichigo learns blut vene and blut arterie. Ichigo struggles with a bow. 

Ichigo meets Distant Cousin Ishida Uryuu, who can see Mom, and who makes a heart-torn face hearing the date of the day she died. (His own mom died, too, but she didn't stay with his dad. They don't know where she went off to.)

Uryuu is utter shit at blut vene but he kicks Ichigo's butt up and down and sideways in fine control and archery. Archery requires a calm mind. Ichigo doesn't often have that.

Ichigo is fifteen and coasting by in class and he has normal friends. (He has no soulmate.) He has ghost friends, too, though they never stay long before a shinigami breezes by. He has learned to pretend not to see those. Kisuke-ojisan is kind of an illegal immigrant but the rest of them are not supposed to interact. They take the ghosts if they're alone or already a pair, send them on. If the ghost is with their living soulmate the shinigami do fiddly things with the soul chain so they don't turn into a hollow on their soulmate, then talk them into saying goodbye for now, I'll be waiting, all that crap, before they get gobbled up by another hollow passing by. 

Sometimes the ghost would rather take the risk. It depends.

Ichigo has ghost friends. Like the little girl who died in a road accident a few weeks back.

The little girl who's gone from her place of death, and the next shinigami sweep isn't until next week. 

He doesn't tell his parents. Dad would yell and then follow him like an entirely useless lump. Mom would straight up stop him and then go by herself. He goes to bed, like normal, and then he slips out of bed, like... some days normal, and he slips out of the window.

It's not very high, now that he can use some reiatsu to strengthen his body.

The house is warded and sealed and triple-protected. No hollow will even feel Kurosaki Masaki's delicious ghostliness, or Karin's blooming, still immature powers. But if he goes over to the park... with the little ghost boy, oh fuck... yeah, he's running. Running and sparking out a bit.

He's shit at hirenkyaku too.

He gets there and the kid is screaming, pinned under some huge, vaguely frog-shaped hollow's back paw. There's a shinigami already on the case, a positively _tiny_ one with dark hair darting around and leaving slices all over, but not managing the deepest cut.

The Yuzu-sized shinigami charges and the hollow tightens its paw on the little boy ghost, who howls.

Ichigo is _shit_ at archery. Uryuu could snipe it from here.

Mom patted that little boy on the head the last time she followed Dad through the park. Told him he was very brave and he could play a little longer, it was okay. Ichigo dives in.

He's shit at bows, but he can make arrows. He's never gone against a real hollow. (Never wanted to. What if they're someone's soulmate. He knows if he kills them they will never be reborn, never meet again (he is never meeting his cat again.)) He charges in. " _Shinigami!_ "

It's a girl. She splutters. "Fool--"

"I'll pin it down -- get the mask!"

It's a mess of terror and swearing at his own reckless stupidity -- he should have called Kisuke-ojisan, he should have called Tessai-san, he should have called _Uryuu_. It moves too fast for him to do more than gouge at the sides of its legs with his arrows, and then it picks up the kid and holds him like a shield and Ichigo utterly, completely freezes.

The little shinigami rams him in the side like an Indiana Jones boulder. They roll. A huge fist whips overhead.

"What are you doing, you buffoon?!"

"Helping you save the kid, stupid!"

"Well, don't!" 

They're running around the open area of the park. The hollow is not speedy for its size, with legs so short compared to its torso, but it is bigger than them, and they can't escape for real and leave the child behind. 

"You're a Quincy, aren't you," the shinigami says shrewdly as she leaps over a seesaw Ichigo has to circle around. 

He knows it's bad if he's found out. Uryuu is completely paranoid about it.

"Yeah," he admits, because they're trying to save a kid together and fuck secrecy. "S'why I can't just... Just kill it." 

She nods; she touches his shoulder, squeezes it. Gives him a smile. "You're a good man."

Then she uses a kidō spell to send him crashing to the ground.

He has two seconds to think himself betrayed and three seconds to scream as she baits the hollow after herself and _its head shoots out on a neck like an accordion_ \--

Blood. She's still bracing against it, sword out. Her hand leaves the guard of her sword to go for another kidō hand sign --

The hollow squeezes its claws and punches them right through the little boy's torso.

Ichigo yells. The shinigami gasps. The hollow swipes its huge hand on its knuckle-dragging arm at her, crashing her into the boy and the two of them into the ground.

Ichigo is shit at gathering outside power, too. He's always had a more than healthy inner supply and he's never felt the need keenly enough and he...

He feels it now. 

His mother could dissolve the hollow alive if she pulled at its reishi hard enough, take it apart into spirit particles. He tries. He _tries_. He pulls at everything -- at the kidō holding him and at the reiatsu whipping out of the shinigami with her blood and at--

Explosion.

He's up.

He's up and he wants something sharp in hand, something that will end it, something that thrums with sharp power -- not the power to take and devour but the power to break apart and set loose and reject.

The mask cracks with a sharp snap that echoes like broken wood, like broken bone. Ichigo stares, eyes wild with confusion, over the guard of the soul-cutting sword that just appeared in his hands.

It's pure reishi, he can feel it. Crystallized and made into sharpness superior to metal, into heft and length and...

It's contained, not grasping and taking the way his arrows are. It's...

The hollow explodes, disperses. (Doesn't _disappear_ , doesn't erase.) Ichigo drops on his knees, turns the shinigami and the boy on their sides. The boy is breathing, but only just, and wetly.

The shinigami is in her under-kimono, the blood-on-white of it shocking. Where did the black layer go...

... where did _her sword_?

"What the hell just happened," he breathes out in horror, a soul-cutter in hand and stolen reishi attempting to shape itself around him like an armor of black cloth.

(Kisuke-ojisan saves the little boy, and sends him on to Soul Society. Ichigo doesn't go home. He spends the night sitting vigil for Kuchiki Rukia and trying to figure out how to unshred a zanpakuto, how to give back part of someone's soul. But he can't, he's too Quincy for it and it's his now, sunken like blueprints into the well of his powers for them to build on.)

\--

Aizen is gone again and the mice are playing.

Grimmjow would enjoy himself if he was allowed to be a cat, but he was told _or else_ he was gonna be a goddamned sheepdog instead.

It's mostly nothing but ambling around and breaking up fights. He's allowed to break them up by grabbing a skull in each hand and slamming them together until they beg him not to crack their masks any further, they will die.

If they do. Eh.

The problem right now is that one of the fighting dumbasses is Segunda Espada Barragan Louisenbairn's fracción, whatshisname, the blond one, and the other one is his own Dumbass-Roy...

Barragan will absolutely take Grimmjow putting hands on him personally.

Grimmjow hates politics and balancing acts, hates knowing that if he puts a hand on Blondie he's gonna have to hand over Di Roy to have the same done unto him (all the fucking eyerolls) and worse, Grimmjow's gonna have to sit there and politely watch. Like that's fucking normal. Yeah, sure, torture my subordinate, that's fair. 

Like hollows care about fair. Like _Grimmjow_ does. There's 'mine' and 'not mine' and that's it. That lying veneer of civility on torture and blood pisses him off.

He could send Nakeem in, though. Fracción helping fracción. That should be fine. Poor blond asshole just got ganged upon, it happens. His buddies _will_ take revenge but so long as it's just a beating it should stay at that level and not involve their Espadas.

His shifts his weight to stand -- he's perched on top of some random column, looking down.

The air tears right behind him.

It's like a garganta but nothing like a garganta and it's chaos and null-space and _hollow_.

And.

Space tears and there's a -- man? -- standing there still throwing up white liquid bone over his own face, the mask not solid yet. 

Grimmjow's hand is on his sword without him even thinking to touch it. He doesn't draw. There's a brand-new still-changing baby hollow who broke straight into the heart of Las Noches and it --

\-- his fracción have noticed the intrusion, they're moving up --

\-- orange hair in bristles and that astringent rasp of Quincy _but Quincies don't hollowify_ \--

"Brat?" he chokes out.

The boy is on his knees, howling. 

He looks up at Grimmjow.

Predictably, he lunges.

He's slow as fuck, so Grimmjow dodges, watches him go right over the edge of the column. His arms have been sealed behind his back; he crashes, howling. Fight entirely forgotten, Di Roy and Findorr move closer to check.

Right. His name was Findorr.

Grimmjow lands behind him and cleaves him open from hole to skull.

Di Roy swears, watching the man's halves fall out; Ichigo tackles him right in the side as he's going for Grimmjow, attempts to bite (and biting the wrong one) with a maw that's half human and half flat, toothy mask. Grimmjow is on him in a second to send him flying with a kick to the side; he slaps Di Roy in the head as he goes. 

"Give him space, you fuckers! He's not interested in you."

They watch as the boy wobbles back onto his legs, arms still tied. 

This is gonna be a fucking pain, isn't it. Lightning-fast, Grimmjow tries to count up low-level arrancar they can feed him so he can shoot past gillian as fast as possible. Kid's got strong energy on his own but...

...But he's... still human-shaped. Instead of exploding and reforming and _then_ growing a mask, he's growing a mask first.

That's fucking weird, isn't it.

"Di Roy, Yylfordt," Edrad booms out. "No one goes in or out." 

They're missing Shawlong, and shit does he want Shawlong here right now. Grimmjow is gonna be busy corralling Ichigo, he can't direct traffic as well. Edrad is stepping up alright but --

Power explodes out; the brat charges at Grimmjow again. The seals are cracking. Shit, _nice_.

Not nice. A release of power like that -- someone will have noticed. Someone will _come_. Motherfuck.

The kid's arms break free. Grimmjow kicks him in the head, and then grabs a handful of that rusty dandelion hair and takes off at a run for the nearest window. 

He's not gonna be sane for fucking weeks at the very least even if they stuff him five times a day, so where can Grimmjow stash him? Not his quarters, that's almost brazen enough to work but he'd burst through the walls guaranteed; not the outposts, same problem plus they can't keep an eye on him; desert's still being patrolled... 

There was a cave, as an adjuchas. A cave he could slip through and the bigger hollows couldn't. They're all small enough now but it'll be easy to wall up. He can set guards on it while he goes do his job, a single exit, much easier to control. Yeah. Fucking perfect. _Miles away,_ but fucking perfect.

"Kill anyone who follows," he orders, and bursts into sonído.

His soulmate is, predictably, a pain to handle. Grimmjow wonders how that could possibly have happened. (Hah.) Where has the scaredy-cat baby gone? He's blaming puberty. 

He gets bitten on the wrist and realizes he's grinning ear to ear.

Ichigo has latched onto his arm with teeth and hands and legs, grinding his flat-bottomed slicing teeth across Grimmjow's hierro trying to get through. He shrieks, two-toned and incensed; how dare dinner not be more chewable? Laughing, Grimmjow plows his arm and the attached growth through a dune.

Then a geyser of power so sudden, it rises like a beacon to every single fucker in possession of eyes and a window three miles away.

Mother of _dick_. Goodbye, stealth.

"Who _is_ that asshole!" Yylfordt is yelling. Grimmjow barely needs to slide Edrad a side-look for Edrad to kick him in the head.

"You don't need to know, just herd him!"

"It'd be easier if we could just use Grimmjow as _bait_ ," Di Roy complains. "He's not going for anyone else!"

... Yeah, that'll be a lightbulb moment for Yylfordt the second they have a second to think. Never mind, Grimmjow doesn't care anymore if they know. Ichigo used to be weak, powerless. Right now, he's...

Still nothing against the lowest arrancar, but. Potential. 

He waits for the next charge.

It doesn't happen. The winds die down and so does the light show, and...

Black shinigami uniform. ( _What_?) High military-looking collar underneath, long sleeves close to the wrist coming out of the wider kimono ones. A five-sided cross dangling from his wrist. 

The mask still on his face. 

He stands like nothing's wrong with a broadsword on his back that's as tall as he is and he reaches up to his own face and promptly yanks it off.

Grimmjow may possibly have inhaled in surprise there. Self-removal of your mask is... It's been done.

Usually it _breaks_ , though, and there's some _part_ left because _otherwise you just die_ \--

Ichigo blinks clear brown eyes at the lot of them, looks around in utter bafflement. "Um. This isn't Kisuke-ojisan's basement."

Grimmjow's shoulders loosen all at once.

"What the hell!" Di Roy yells. "What the hell was that! You transform into a basic hollow, and you _tear off your own fucking mask_ , and then you're _fine?!_ That's bullshit! Who the hell are you?!"

"Oh. Right. Yeah. Kurosaki Ichigo, Quincy... Shinigami, I guess. Quincygami? Man, I don't even know. Hi. Where are we?"

Edrad sneaks Grimmjow a look. Grimmjow is busy smirking like a fiend and doesn't respond; Edrad sighs, smiling just a little. "Hueco Mundo. Couple miles off from Las Noches. I'm Edrad, that's Di Roy, that's--"

"Alright, why are we introducing ourselves to an intruder instead of gaining brownie points by handing him over to my brother for testing?" Yylfordt interrupts. "I understand that's what Grimmjow wants to do but _why_?"

Grimmjow shrugs. He can't seem to stop smirking. Finally, he's seeing it. After years of tender-hearted mewlings, it turns out his soulmate is a freak of nature and completely ridiculous. He went for a one-way trip on the hollow train and decided he didn't like the climate and now he's standing stranded in a world of hungry evil ghosts and looks at worst mildly concerned. That's Grimmjow's mate? The one supposed to be his equal and his match? Yeah, he's starting to be pretty cool with it. 

Would have been alright if he'd had to raise him up to adjuchas, too, but.

Would have been better if hollowifying all the way had made him stronger than he can become by keeping his heart. But Grimmjow is getting the feeling Ichigo is gonna manage that one on his own.

Hell, he just fucking _died_ , didn't he. Huh. 

Meh. Not the end of the world.

"So you're Grimmjow, then. You the boss?"

Grimmjow gives a noncommittal hum.

"You wouldn't happen to know of a way back to the Living World, would you?"

Grimmjow shrugs, starts rooting around in his ear with his pinky. It's so _hard_ not to laugh.

"... Why are you on the verge of cracking up," the kid asks with scowling suspicion.

"I don't _know_ , crybaby, why am I on the verge of cracking up." He snorts. " _Verge_. Pff."

Ichigo stares at him for five entire, motionless seconds. 

Then Grimmjow's cheek is smarting and his head gets flung to the side, because his soulmate just _punched him in the face_.

"Oh my god what the _fuck!_ " Ichigo screeches, not seeming to even notice the hold Grimmjow has on his wrist. "I thought you were _dead!_ I thought you got _eaten!_ You _absolute fucker_ \--" 

He goes to hit him with the other hand. Grimmjow sweeps his legs out and throws him on his back in the sand. 

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, brat. I'm flattered."

Ichigo throws a handful of sand at him. Grimmjow shoves him back down with a foot to his shoulder. Ichigo proceeds to try to strangle his ankle. "How should I _know_ what you can take, I was a _kid!_ You were the only hollow I could see!"

"Yeah well, surprise, I'm the sixth most powerful hollow you could possibly meet in your _life_ , you don't gotta fret over me, mini snack!"

Ichigo curls up and kicks him behind the knee. Grimmjow could keep his leg steady, but it's more fun to fold up and see what happens next.

Spoiler, it's another punch toward his face. He tilts his head out of the way and sweeps Ichigo's legs out from under him again.

Then again. And again. Someone here doesn't know how to quit. Might also do well eating some sand.

"I don't even know your name," Ichigo says morosely a minute later, spread-eagle on the sand and glaring sullenly at the moon in between spitting out little white grains. "Wait--"

"You just heard it."

"That's the point, you absolute asshole, you _never told me your name_. You never told me you were my soulmate either, I had to _hear it from my mom_." 

He lifts his head just enough to glare. Sitting on his haunches beside him, Grimmjow grins back, all teeth out. "Ahh, so you're still dumb. Cute."

"... Fuck you so much," Ichigo mutters. Then he blinks and gives the guys surrounding them an embarrassed look. 

Yylfordt and Di Roy are goggling back. Edrad is smirking to himself. Nakeem looks Ichigo up and down, then looks at Grimmjow, and then nods.

"He'll be something," he pronounces, "if he doesn't get eaten first."

Grimmjow cackles. "Ain't that the way for everyone." 

Ichigo stands, giving everyone quick glances, then he's staring at Grimmjow again, half-nervous behind his quizzical frown. Grimmjow is an asshole, so he just stares back.

"So, uh. Soulmates, huh. That's -- ooh _crap,_ I need to get back, Kisuke-ojisan won't know what happened!"

Grimmjow gives a slow blink and flicks him right in the forehead. Ichigo lands on his ass in a dune. "That the green fucker, right? Then he knows what happened, because he's not a dumbass and if he was there he saw you _just died_."

Ichigo pauses, mouth still open to yell back. Pales a little. Edrad chortles. "Did he just figure it out now?"

"Oh. Oh _fuck_. Did I -- did I explode my body?" He starts patting himself down. "Is this a spiritual body? How do you tell?!"

"It's a spiritual body," Grimmjow confirms, eyes hooded. 

... Yeah, he's starting to freak out for real. Grimmjow doesn't really have a working sense of empathy at the moment -- he can approximate with logic and observations if he tries but it's not automatic and often not worth bothering with. But if he lets Ichigo keep going down that rabbit hole then he's gonna have to deal with the ensuing breakdown in _some_ way and that'll be a pain--

"... Well, Kisuke-ojisan will have gigai. Maybe I can borrow mom's prototype."

Grimmjow blinks.

"Or I guess I can just go to Soul Society straight away, so he'll have time to make me a proper one while I'm gone--" Ichigo keeps going, slowly bringing his wild eyes and fast breathing under something approaching control. He's still kinda babbling, though--

"--While you're going _where_?"

Oh, that glare. Narrow, piercing, absolutely no-bullshit. It's like running at a kitten to see it fluff up and instead getting a pawful of claws to the face. Grimmjow's back straightens in delighted offense. This little pissant really does think he's hot shit, huh?

"Grimmjow, you start acting like my third parent and I will shoot an arrow up your ass."

Di Roy grins. "Oh no, not an _arrow_."

The bow that materializes is maybe as long as Grimmjow's forearm. 

The arrow, meanwhile, looks like a mid-sized tree trunk. The tip turns the sand to glass at Di Roy's feet. 

"An _arrow_ ," Ichigo bites out. " _Up. Your. Ass_."

Fuck but Grimmjow is gonna have fun with this kid. Cackling to himself, he sweeps in under Ichigo's guard, slaps his arm up and to the side arrow and all and catches his chin in his other hand. "Cute." Then he lets his amusement fall and his reiatsu rise. "Now _what was that about Soul Society_." 

\--

The garganta tears open right in front of Kisuke-san's shop and her son comes out. Eyes a bit wide and hands firmed into fists.

He freezes with guilt when he sees her. Eyes brown, wide open. Mask-less. Human. She smiles. God, she thought she would _die_.

Well, die again. "Karin-chan, tell Daddy your brother's fine, please!"

Ichigo is staring at her. "Mom, _why are you here_. And Karin? What? Why." He seems to be trying to hide his shinigami robes, the massive claymore on his back. The sword is as tall as he is, so that's a bit of a lost cause.

Masaki gives a slow blink, a finger pressed to her lip in mock-confusion. "I don't know! It may be that Kisuke-san knew better than to lie to our faces about that kind of thing?"

Karin is on the phone with her dad but she sneaks them wincing looks. Masaki puts her hands on her hips. 

Her son's face twists with anguish and somber resolve. "Mom -- I'm sorry, you can't stop me. I'm going. I've got to--"

"Well of course you've got to!" She smiles, mouth closed. "And so do your little friends." 

Ichigo blinks. He seriously didn't expect that from them? Heh. This silly boy. 

"But at fifteen none of you are experienced with your own powers and stuff. That's why I'm coming with. And Rukia-chan is very nice so if you make me ground you I'll go without you anyways."

Ichigo opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. No words come out. Then with a huge sigh he throws his hands up and goes, " _Alright_ , I _guess!_ "

Masaki giggles. "Wow, that was easy." He glares. "Alright, now let's go down to Kisuke-san so he can finish up your training."

"...It's not finished?"

"Do you know the name of your sword?" By his blinking it's obvious he doesn't. Masaki turns, waiting for her children to follow her through the shop's front door. "Then it's not over yet, from what I understand."

"Huh." Her son blinks slowly, a hand rising to touch the handle of his sword. "Alright then."

"Oh! And how was Mister Cat?" She grins. "We got so scared when Kisuke-san told us you'd disappeared, until we figured it out. Was he nice to you?"

Karin is peering at her brother's face suddenly, a smirk blooming on her face. "Ohooo, Dad, Ichi-nii is _blushing_."

"I'm not!"

"--Wait, your soulmate is a giant cat, right? Wow." A brief pause. "Dad says you're a pervert. I've got to agree."

"One, he's not a cat anymore, and two, I'm not blushing, I'm pissed off! He was talking shit about how he's fine if I go and get myself killed, he'll just have to train up my next life! Wait right by my _next mom's va_ \-- ah. Argh. He's such an asshole. Why did he never _tell me_ \--"

He falls silent, mouth twisting in honest pain before he turns his face away. Masaki sighs, rests her hand on her son's widening shoulder.

"There are... things going on behind the surface in Soul Society. Conspiracy stuff?" She makes a face. "That's why I'm going. Last time your soulmate came to check on you he told Kisuke-san there was a shinigami transforming hollows into being more human-looking, more like shinigami -- it makes them stronger too. Kisuke-san knows who's doing it but he's an exile and everyone _knows_ he's twisty, it's not like he can tell them. They'd think he's lying to cover up his own stuff."

"...Oh."

A long, thinking pause. Karin and Masaki stare, waiting. 

"Is that... Aizen?"

She winces, hearing that name. "Did Mister Cat tell you that?"

"Mister Cat's name is actually Grimmjow." Karin snorts; Ichigo flicks her a smile, but it's a tired one. "Yeah, that's not much better. Heh. But... He said -- this guy named Aizen and some blind fuc-- ummm. Guy. And some 'snake faced smiley face'? They should never see me."

Masaki nods slowly. It's... It's good, that her son's soulmate cares enough to offer a warning? He's a hollow, it should be impossible. If he were _only_ a hollow, it would probably be. Then again what does she really know about hollows, save from what's been taught to her by people dedicated to killing them? Maybe it's more normal than not.

Maybe her son isn't going to get his heart broken. It would be nice. 

"And if he came that would draw basically every single f--person's attention especially Aizen's and we'd all get killed, like I _asked him_ to _babysit me_. And then he never gave me more descriptions than that? Thanks for nothing, asshole."

Oh. She knows her son enough to know when he's quoting. His soulmate wanted to _come along?_ Wow. But Mister Cat's right that it would draw the whole of Seireitei down on their heads three steps in. "I don't know what they look like either. But it seems logical that this Aizen person would have allies. Let's ask Kisuke-san?"

"...Mmm."

Ichigo is silent as they get to the ladder. He scales down, going before Karin so he can catch her if she slips; Masaki jumps and floats. It took her a little while to get used to ghostliness but some of the advantages are really fun.

The strain to keep herself from returning to Isshin is _not_ as fun, but she's got years of training by now, and once they're in Soul Society she'll stop feeling it.

Kisuke-san is waiting with Tessai-san and the kids. Karin waves shyly, joins them, holding the phone tight. She needs more friends who can see the same things she does, Masaki knows. It'll be good for her.

Ichigo stays back, pensive.

"So, he's working for that Aizen, isn't he."

Kisuke-san and Masaki both tilt their heads at him.

"He was hiding me from something. Shoved me in the garganta really fast at the end, like he'd felt someone coming. He..." His brow furrows some more; he looks up at Kisuke-san, serious, direct. "He knew you."

"He... visited a couple of times in the last few years, yes." 

"And you never bothered to tell me you were wrong and he hadn't gotten killed," Ichigo replies, weary.

Kisuke looks back with the same weary eyes. "I didn't know how long I was going to be wrong for, Ichigo-san. And he _is_ working for the enemy." Ichigo stiffens; Kisuke-san sighs. "Not very faithfully, but that doesn't help -- if he tries to break away and doesn't execute his escape plan perfectly he will absolutely die."

Her son blinks a couple of times, like that's hard to swallow, to wrap his mind around -- then he nods.

"Alright. When we're back with Rukia, then it's his turn."

Kisuke-san opens his mouth; for a few miraculous seconds nothing comes out. Masaki giggles, irrepressibly. 

"You... will be rescuing a hollow. A really, really powerful hollow."

"Sixth most powerful I'm ever gonna meet, apparently! And his friends. Probably got to. It wouldn't be fair. Also this guy's experimenting on hollows, right? I know they're lost souls but that's still not cool. Either cleanse them or leave them alone. And him and his friends..."

Her son hesitates. 

"... They weren't trying to eat me. They were -- pretty cool? They sounded like people, not like..."

"That's probably the shinigami injection to make them arrancar," Kisuke-san says airily. "I still wouldn't trust them with tender, juicy people they have no reason to care about, they must have picked up deplorable table manners in the interval. Anyway! Will you please get back into your body and get ready for the last step? Daylight's wasting, Ichigo-san."

"Pff. Your ceiling has an artificial su -- wait. I'm _not dead?_ "

"... No?"

Kisuke-san points. Ichigo's empty body has been sat up against a rock, and then dressed up in sunglasses and a frilly purple shirt straight out of Isshin's dresser. Masaki would blame her husband and daughters but that one was entirely her idea. She likes the contrast, and also Ichigo's mortified faces at anything lame-dad-related are hilarious. That child seriously needs to relax.

"You guys couldn't have started out with that?! I was trying so hard to be cool with it, oh my _god_ , Mom, Uncle, what the _fuck_." He stomps out toward his waiting body, swearing a blue streak under his breath. Masaki watches him go, and laughs.

He's not going to be safe. But he wasn't going to be safe from his conception anyway, and she knew better than to hope she would succeed in keeping him hidden the second the other half of his soul showed up all claws and teeth out.

He's not going to be safe. He's going to be magnificent.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sloooowly working out a solid plot... >_>;;;

Masaki doesn't say anything to Kuukaku and Ganju after all. Not 'By the way, your cousin Isshin is alive' and definitely not 'By the way, I'm your cousin-in-law'.

The first time they met she didn't want it to be a distraction from the battles to come. Ichigo and Ganju seemed to bond anyway -- like they could tell -- in the same rough, antagonistic, secretly caring way her son also bonded to Uryuu-kun. Family recognizing family.

The last time, she doesn't want to take away from Rukia-chan's apologies over Kaien's death. And then Ichigo and Rukia-chan and Orihime-chan have a talk that seems important, and private; and she drifts around them and toward the house, not wanting to intrude.

And Kuukaku says, "You've seen portraits of my brother Kaien in the house, right," cutting her a short, sideways look, and Masaki clears her throat and laughs and takes not one step closer, because she's quite sure Kuukaku would have no problem punching her too, if she misstepped.

"I did! He was very handsome."

"A bit more handsome than your son."

"It's the eyelashes," Masaki says, voice gentling. "Your brother had quite spectacular eyes. Ichigo's are more droopy, like mine."

Kuukaku stares at her wordlessly. Ganju blinks and goes, "Right, with the hair color and all I didn't even notice that he looks kinda like my bro. Weird coincidence!"

Masaki says nothing about how it isn't a coincidence at all that her son resembles his brother, or that Ganju resembles her husband. Considering Kuukaku's apology policy, she's not going to want to hear a damn thing until it comes from Isshin's own mouth.

Then of course she's going to punch him in the face. But Masaki thinks the love of her life, summer of her soul, pillar of her strength etc etc kind of deserves this one.

Masaki takes a bit of the long way around going back; spends some time looking at the sights. She runs into Captains Ukitake and Kyouraku on the way; Ukitake-san pleasantly mentions how glad he is that their census was so wrong and there are still so many living pure-blooded Quincies in the material world. "I'd feel terrible if you had to send your son back and stay behind in Soul Society," he says, airy and gentle.

Masaki smiles back. Wonders how he knew that she died. If he knew when it happened -- trackers? -- or if despite what Kisuke-san did to stabilize her chain of fate there is still some way to tell, looking at her spiritual body, that she's an unmoored, un-konsoued spirit.

If there is, it has to be a rare ability, or he wouldn't be warning her now.

"Aw, if you did have to stay I would be delighted to keep you company!" Kyouraku-san jokes. 

Masaki snorts. "How awful a thing to say to a married woman, and in front of your own soulmate to boot."

Ukitake-san clears his throat in amused embarrassment; Kyouraku-san blinks, and then beams a bright, meaningless smile. "Ah, how keen-eyed of you! Nothing to worry about, the bond Juushiro and I share is of the platonic kind." He takes her hand showily, bends close. "Nothing prevents us from knowing each other as man and w--"

Pfffft. "I wonder what Ichigo will say! Oh, dear son, meet your new stepfather--"

"... You have a vicious mind, Kurosaki-san."

She grins.

She can't tell if they mean it, the platonic thing, or if Soul Society is still the same as Japan a century ago and the only thing two same-gendered soulmates can pretend to is adoption into each other's clan register, as a polite 'brotherhood' fiction.

There were earlier periods in history where same-gender soulmates were seen as right and proper, as _truer_ , and it was the heterosexual marriages that were seen as mere offspring-related necessity. But considering Soul Society's track record on anachronisms and strange prejudice, she's not sure.

For a second she worries about Ichigo, and then she remembers that the shinigami will have problems with Grimmjow that have nothing to do with his gender. So... A bit moot.

Besides, she still doesn't know if Ichigo sees him platonically or not. She's not sure he knows. 

She's not sure he has even wondered yet.

\--

"Everyone packed up and ready to go? Uryuu, you got all your sewing shit?"

Uryuu is sitting on his bunk bed, glowering at the floor, his brand-new bag of sewing shit on his knees. (Where did he get it, Ichigo wonders. Did he make it? With what? Who did he steal the materials from. Did they generate out of thin air? Was he keeping them under his shirt wirth his seventh cape? Those are the questions you ask yourself around Ishida Uryuu.) 

"Yes, I. Yes."

"So you're ready or nah?"

He's the only one still sitting, unmoving. Chad is in the doorway and Inoue waiting right next to him. Rukia's in the corridor.

"... I."

"Ishida-kun?"

He looks up through his glasses, staring at the lot of them in turns; opens his mouth, closes it, and then when Ichigo was losing all hope and getting ready to just throw him across his shoulders, blurts out, "My soulmate is a _shinigami!_ "

He looks so offended that it almost hides the distraught. Ichigo stares, so busy boggling at that coming from Mister Prissy Pride that he almost misses the...

"... Congratulations?"

The look of loathing he gets is more familiar, and a bit reassuring. "Oh my _god_ , go to _hell_ , Kurosaki."

Inoue squees, and drags Rukia through the doorway by the hand as she rushes to Uryuu's side, popping her like a cork between Chad and the doorjamb. "That's awesome! Who is it?" A theatrical gasp. "Is it Rukia-chan--"

"It is damn well not!"

Inoue looks disappointed. "You can tell us if--"

"It's not!"

"But you made her a _dress_. A really cute--"

Ichigo looks up at Chad and gives a slow, 'uhhhh' blink. Chad blinks back just as slowly. Rukia is trying to protest that she's not but it seems to be falling on deaf ears, Inoue busy exclaiming on the prettiness of their future offspring.

"It's Kurotsuchi Nemu," Uryuu says, shoulders slumping heavily, and his tone drains all the fun that was still present in the room. "I'm almost sure." 

Everyone exchanges glances over his head. Uryuu sighs, doesn't look at anyone. 

"There was this... This _pull_... Very light, but as a Quincy I can damn well feel it when--" His voice breaks a little. "I thought it was a _technique_."

"As a Quincy I can't feel any of that shit," Ichigo replies drolly, because he has no fucking idea what to say to that. He knows what Uryuu thinks of shinigami. It doesn't help a ton that Ichigo and his dad are shinigami too, technically, because obviously if Isshin chose to leave the Seireitei like a thief in the night it's only more proof that they suck or something.

Uryuu spears him with a look that's half furious and half... Aw, hell. Shit. 

"Um. My soulmate's a hollow," Ichigo admits quietly, and only afterwards thinks to make sure that the door is closed. It's not, but the corridor is empty. Phew. He closes it, mostly to busy his hands and have an excuse not to look at Uryuu. "I mean, I get it a bit. Not... I don't have anything _personal_ against all hollow-kind, I just."

One of them did kill his mom. Lots of them do kill tons of people, routinely. 

But he can't hate them over it. It's not like they can help it. 

Uryuu would reply that shinigami could have damn well chosen not to exterminate their people. "... Yeah, okay, it's not the same."

"Why do you sound like you think _I have it worse_ ," Uryuu asks, mystified and staring. "Holy shit, Kuro-- _Ichigo_. Ichigo, you. I'm -- did you have to...?"

Wha -- Why is Rukia's hand on his arm all careful, why are Inoue's eyes so big and damp, why does Chad-- 

"Ooh fuck! No! He's alive. He's fine. I mean, he's. God, I shouldn't even tell you guys in here. He's a... special kind of hollow? He doesn't eat people anymore. He's still a huge asshole, but." 

His face is hot. Grimmjow has always been just for him; his secret, his special cat. His family knows, but that's it. He never even _thought_ to tell Uryuu. It wasn't like he could casually introduce them to each other over tea.

"We're not regularly in touch or anything, but he's... I've seen him around. I'll tell you guys more once we're back? This isn't the best place for it."

"I'll say," Rukia retorts, eyes huge and brows furrowed like a condemning owl. "You'll owe me a full report the _second_ I come down to visit."

Ichigo can't help grinning. She's planning to visit already. Heh. He knew it wasn't the end of it when she decided to stay here, stay home, but it's really nice to hear. "Yeah, I promise. Anyway! Uryuu. Nemu-san. You wanna do something about...?"

"Ooh," Inoue moans with a pained grimace. "Oh noo, Kurotsuchi-taichou as your father in law. Oh _noooo_. Poor Ishida-kun."

Uryuu groans, hides his face in both hands. "The only good thing coming out of this is how much it's pissing Kurotsuchi off. He ' _didn't build her to have one and how dare the Soul King meddle in his creation_.' Ugh. What's wrong with our family! Shinigami, hollows, what are your sisters even going to _match with_? Demons straight from Hell? The Soul King?"

"I could see Yuzu with the Soul King," Chad says, like an _asshole_ , and both Ichigo and his cousin death-stare in utter betrayal as Inoue nods along with this awesome idea. 

"Then of course Karin-chan would be with the King of Hell!" Rukia agrees, looking gravely thoughtful and entirely serious. When glaring produces no effect, Ichigo throws her across his shoulder, punches Chad in the hip, and stomps out, Uryuu on his heels and looking just as offended.

Mom's out there up on the hill, waiting with a couple of captains. She waves. Ichigo waves back, and gets kneed in the head by Rukia for his troubles. He drops her; she lands like a cat, already puffed up.

"Oh, Kuchiki-san, what about your soulmate? How does it work between shinigami? Do you know who--"

Ichigo harrumphs in vindication when Rukia goes red and avoids the subject. "Ah, um. It's complicated. What about you, Inoue-san?"

"I think it might be Tatsuki-chan? But of course as long as we're both alive there's no way to be sure. Maybe I'll meet them later on. But I don't know how they'll compete with Tatsuki-chan as my best friend."

He's not sure why Rukia is side-eyeing him back so evilly. "Ahh, so you are _sure_ that yours is going to be platonic."

"Um. Well. Ummmmm. ...Yes?"

Inoue's gone red. Ichigo blinks at her.

"How about _yours_ , Ichigo?" Rukia asks, smiling with all the frozen politeness of an ice shark.

"What," he starts saying, and then catches sight of a head of black hair, half-hidden in the bushes at the bottom of the hill. Is that...?

It is.

He gives his cousin a big great shove via foot to his ass. "You've got two minutes to woo her, Ucchan!" he calls out, and looks innocent when his mom sputters out a laugh.

Of _course_ he and Grimmjow are gonna be platonic. He used to be a giant cat, for fuck's sake. And Ichigo is pretty sure that they're gonna end up sparring at some point -- he's both nervous and really intrigued at the thought to be honest; Grimmjow seems _strong_ \-- and it's gonna be epic and will devastate the countryside, and who in the _world_ would want to put bruises on someone so much and then turn around and also want to kiss on the mouth.

\--

Aizen and Tousen and Gin noticed Ichigo, and then some. Grimmjow is gonna murder his ass. Maybe the hollow version will be less stupid.

Then again. Ichigo's not the only fucking stupid one.

"Your brother wants what."

Yylfordt winces, forces himself to pull his shoulders back, throw his hair over his shoulder like he doesn't care. "He, uh. He wants samples. From the anomalous newborn ho-- I mean, your... Yeah."

They're in one of their cavern hideouts outside of Las Noches -- slightly better chances they're not bugged to hell and back -- but honestly Grimmjow is pretty sure Yylfordt _is_ bugged. At least it's likely to only be Szayel. Nobody has the time to listen to every single shit every single númerotakes, and Yylfordt isn't one of the smart useful ones. He's good at destruction and that's pretty much it.

So Szayel is asking in secret because he doesn't want Aizen to know he's been picking up weirdass samples either, because then he'd have to share his toys. When Aizen finds an interesting hollow he usually wants to add them to his forces and after that the things Szayel is allowed to do to them really vary based on how much Aizen will get pissed off if he loses use of them.

So he's not gonna want to stop at _samples_. 

But he's not gonna want to run to Aizen or Tousen and whine that Grimmjow won't share his toys either.

Especially not now that they've come back from the Seireitei for good all smiling and tight-lipped.

"What's he gonna do if I say no?" Grimmjow asks lazily, swinging his foot and staring at some point in the distance that just happens to be hidden by Yylfordt's head. Guy's sweating. Well, he can. They're gonna have to burn this hideout, and it was the closest. The rest are too far to visit between shifts without being noticed missing.

"Casually mention to Barragan that it was weird how Findorr got killed by that baby hollow," Yylfordt says with a heaving sigh. "And that it was weirder that an Espada couldn't hold it back from escaping. And even weirder than that how our best tracker -- um, you -- couldn't find it again."

Yeah, Grimmjow was a dumbass to think they got away with that one.

Barragan had heavy, pointed questions for him about those very topics already, and things have been frosty between their fraccións since then, but if Szayel has surveillance data then Barragan's gonna have proof.

Grimmjow will be lucky if he only loses two of his men for this.

"He say what he thinks the baby hollow _was_?"

He can't directly ask if Szayel knows about the soulmate thing. He may have nothing but power readings and the camera in the pillar room to go off of.

But Yylfordt winces. "He _didn't_ , but he did say there was only one thing that would enable a garganta to open right past a barrier like that. Like, with that snotty tone he takes when..."

Fuck. Yeah, he knows. Grimmjow looks at Shawlong, who pinches his lips and says nothing.

Szayel knows they're soulmates. Knows that means Ichigo is Grimmjow's -- to devour or adopt into his fraccion or do anything he wants to; that he's _Grimmjow's first and foremost_. And he's still asking. That doesn't make any fucking sense. Is he so warped he'll think Grimmjow will relinquish his claim and think it's no big deal or does he think Grimmjow is stupid enough to believe Szayel just wants a nibble, barely a taste, it's not like he's actually fucking encroaching?

... He might be off in the head enough for the first one, and he's definitely arrogant enough for the second. Grimmjow will have to ask Yylfordt later, once he's dewormed.

"If it's just samples," Grimmjow lies with a short, irritated sigh. "But he's gonna have to wait, I don't got time to go looking for him right now. Not with Aizen back home in a fucking tizzy."

And Yylfordt should be relaxing now he's not caught between his brother and his Espada any longer; only he winces again.

"He was mumbling about spontaneous Vasto Lordes."

... Fucking shit, what the hell? Ichigo's not _that_ strong. He's got potential, sure, but Grimmjow would place him at his best in between Grimmjow and Shawlong, and Grimmjow isn't even sure if he would make Vasto Lorde with his current power level if he wasn't stuck as Arrancar. 

Ichigo _did_ look like a perfectly humanoid hollow, though. Did Szayel have a camera but not reiatsu sensors? What?

"Spontaneous Vasto Lordes. Right. Couldn't get a bite through my hierro, but a Vasto Lorde." He snorts, pushes away from his rock to stand. "Yeah, who am I to stand in the way of his crackpot theories. C'mon, let's go back." 

Grimmjow meets the rest of his fracción on the way back, hunting half-heartedly in the dunes and blowing pointless craters that'll be swallowed by the sands in the next day; they bounce up to him like puppies and make damn sure they ask nothing. Though Grimmjow is pretty sure he's seen Di Roy open his mouth and get elbowed by Edrad and then Nakeem like a ping-pong ball of stupid questions. 

They're passing the first gates when Gin calls out to them with a cheerful wave.

"Did you guys have a good walk?"

"Yeah, fantastic," Grimmjow drawls back, and doesn't protest when the man falls into step with him, though it rankles a bit. Gin's as alright as anyone not his fracción can be, but he's still not one of his. "Pissed on every tree we could find. What's up?"

"Throne room in ten minutes!" the man proclaims cheerfully. "It's good that you won't need a bathroom break. You're the last ones in."

Ugh. Grimmjow picks up the pace -- not into a run, but a more purposeful walk. They're not that far, they'll make it. And if some números have crowded too close his fracción can cut themselves a spot. "What about?"

"Would I spoil the surprise like that?"

Grimmjow stares at Gin. 

"Hmm?"

"When it's not one of your surprises then damn straight you would. Cough it up."

"You're absolutely no fun. Aizen-sama asked Ulquiorra and Yammy to investigate potential obstacles in the living world earlier. They just came back."

Aw, _motherfuck_.

The Living World means _living humans_ and while the Earth is pretty damn big there's only one place Aizen has been obsessing over for as long as they've known him. No bet on whose faces he is going to see. 

Gin notices when he walks a little faster, of fucking course he does. Grimmjow can see him glancing down at his feet and then pointedly deciding to swerve the conversation in a direction Grimmjow will expect less.

"So what were the lot of you talking about out there? I always wonder what the lot of you chat about, outside of battles an' hunting. And trash talk, I guess." 

... If Grimmjow was wrong about not everyone being bugged he is gonna blow a gasket. He smiles, toothy and mean. "Soulmates! You got one?"

The change in Gin's face is almost imperceptible, but the brief flicker of killing intent is not. Someone less attuned might miss it, but Grimmjow's the best fucking sensor they have; he notices. He managed a bullseye somehow. 

Gin smiles again, just as fake, but it feels less pleasant. "Doesn't everyone?"

Grimmjow grins a little wider, a little more unhinged. "Ever wonder what their soul would taste like?"

He pushes a side door into the throne room open and bullies his way through the crowd before Gin can answer, hopping from platform to platform in search of a good vantage point. 

(Of course he's thought about what Ichigo's soul would taste like. About what it would do to his reiatsu levels, about what it would do to his sense of self -- his perfect match, his echo, his balance. Post-Menos hollows have a dominant soul, of course -- but that doesn't mean all the ones they were stuck with as they fought their way to proeminence don't affect them at all. Most adjuchas don't know for sure what difference it makes because by the time they get there they've already killed their soulmate and forgotten like half of their old human shit, but for one thing, those who got to eat theirs tend to end up higher up the hollow food chain. It's intriguing.)

(Of _course_ he's thought about what Ichigo's soul would taste like. Ever since he saw that squalling, squashed little thing, and his first thought on the heels of that first craving was, 'that is not a fair fight; that is not even a fair hunt.') 

(He ain't gonna find out unless Ichigo turns into a massive disappointment somehow. Grimmjow ain't anywhere close to done with him.)

"At least we know Ulquiorra didn't get him," Yylfordt mutters in his ear as Shawlong looms some no-names into ceding their real estate. "Or you'd be getting your ass haunted right now."

Grimmjow snorts. Haunted, and then murdered. Or stuck in some little prison trap to get Ghost Ichigo out of the way, get a means of pressure on his ghost mom and assorted family and hanger-ons. Aizen came back from the Seireitei preening about his great successes but Gin was a little more free about all the shit that went wrong at the last second and all the arrows he had to dodge. He finds out one of his Espadas is bonded to that and Grimmjow is dead, he has no illusions about any of that.

But fuck him anyway. Grimmjow knew from the start he wasn't getting free until Aizen had bit the big one. It's just a bit more incentive to stay on top of things. He can do it.

... He had better make sure Ichigo can do it too.


End file.
